Students unable to access Google Docs using Canvas Google Drive LTI

[TechRav]

We have been using the Canvas Google Drive LTI since we got Canvas 3 years ago without any issues. Then a week ago, I started getting reports that students could not access Google Docs which were posted by their teacher in assignments and modules on Canvas. Instead, the LTI tries to open and then produces the following error message: 

Google Drive

We cannot access the requested file. Please contact the administrator of the Google drive account for further details.

What makes this so perplexing is we have changed NOTHING in the past few weeks with our Canvas or Google consoles. The same students who could access Google docs in the past through Canvas, now can't. And if I try to access these google docs as a teacher in the Canvas assignment, I can, BUT if I act as a student in the same web browser on the same assignment, I get the error message. This is clearly a Canvas issue, not browser or user based or based on Google Drive.

Below is a screencast video of the issue.

Error message using Canvas Google Drive LTI as a student 

I reached out to Canvas support over a week ago and after repeated calls and emails. they have upgraded this to Level 3 support. Has anyone faced a similar issue and found a solution?

Thanks!

Tzvi Pittinsky

[hammond_steven]

Adding our name to the list as well, we're in Ohio on us-east-1 cluster86. It's inconsistent but growing.

This thread isn't pinned and no message on the status page. With so many people chiming in with the same problem seems like some sort of notice should be more readily visible. 

[fciccitto]

We are also having this issue with a few teachers/students.  I have an open ticket with Canvas, but no resolutions.

[ITHelpDesk]

We are having this issue as well. 

[PatriciaDenton]

Hello- My district had this same issue since the beginning of the school year.  But it was only for certain students and certain classes.  It took almost 8 weeks for Canvas to resolve the issue, but they were able to resolve the issue after many back and forth emails.  I sent them the teacher name, course number, student name and number.  It is now happening again but only for certain new students (not all).  Very frustrating and response time from Canvas was a hindrance to the education process for weeks.  I have some teachers who are no longer using Canvas due to this (and several other) issues.

These were the steps they instructed me to take.  It worked for some students but not all:

Step 1 - Allow Third Party Cookies

Step 2 - Remove Google Drive as a Register Service in Canvas
* To do this open the student’s account settings in Canvas.
* Find the section titled Registered Services on the settings page.
* Look for service named Google Drive.
* If you hover over this service with your cursor a red circle with and “x” will appear. Click this circle to remove the Google Drive service.
Step 3 - Remove Google Drive LTI IAD-Prod as an Approved Integration in Canvas
* To do this open the student’s account settings in Canvas.
* Find the section titled Approved Integrations on the settings page.
* Find the integration called Google Drive LTI IAD-Prod.
* To the right of the integration name you will see a trash icon. Click this to remove the integration.
Step 4 - Remove Google Drive LTI by Canvas as an App in Google Drive
* To do this open the student’s Google Drive.
* Click on the gear icon in the top right corner of the screen.
* Choose Settings from the drop down menu that appears.
* Once Settings is open, select Manage Apps on the left side of the settings box.
* Find the app named Google Drive LTI by Canvas, and click Options.
* Then click Disconnect from Drive.
* Now click Done.
Step 5 - Log Out
* Log out of Chrome, Google, and Canvas
Step 6 - Clear Cache and Cookies for All Time
Step 7 - Authorize the Google Drive LTI
* Have the student navigate to an assignment that requires them to access Google Docs.
* Click the Authorize button in the bottom left corner of the screen.
* Choose the Google account that uses the same email address as the student’s default email in Canvas.

[MARISSASCHRADER]

This is a fix that we have used in the past when we've encountered issues with Google in Canvas. Usually this worked, but lately, it doesn't and students continue to receive the same message: 

"We cannot access the requested file. Please contact the adminstrator of the Google drive account for further details." 

It is time this is resolved as it really is distrupting teaching and learning. 

[jnobili]

Same with our district. Used to work now does not.

[pecchiog]

Same. Agree 100%. 

[madhavassj]

We are also seeing this issue. We are on cluster20

[JessieHill1]

I sent in a ticket to Canvas referencing this thread, multiple times in hope we can get a solution to this! I also included direct links to courses, teachers, and students that are seeing the issue as well as screenshots of what is happening. 

[madhavassj]

I did much of the same.

[jnobili]

My response from Canvas. Similar to others. Does seem like they are being bombarded, but that's a good thing.

Hello Jeff!

My name is Amber and I am with L2 Canvas Support. I understand that you are running into an issue where students and teachers are receiving messages stating that they are not authorized to access Google Drive cloud assignments that have been shared with them. 

This behavior is something that our engineering team is currently looking to on their end. I have associated your case to the engineering tracker for this behavior and we will provide you updates on this as they become avaialble.

If you have any questions about this, please let us know.

Thank you,

Amber
L2 Canvas Support

[JessieHill1]

Here is the most recent response I have gotten from Canvas after MUCH back and forth yesterday: Thank you for your response. Our agents are aware that this is a problem for some users and the problem is being worked on. 

An agent will be in touch with you.

We are sorry for the inconvenience. I hope that this is resolved soon! If you have any further questions or need additional assistance, please don't hesitate to reach out.

Regards
Muhammed
Canvas Support

I have been updating my ticket a couple of times a day and have requested an estimate of when a fix is projected to happen. 

[audra_agnelly]

There shouldn't have been any back and forth! Canvas knows this is an issue, all L1 agents should know this is an issue and the current criteria that a causing the problems. If you have criteria outside what is defined, that should be getting escalated internally.

 I contacted them on 1/10 to report the issue and was told there was nothing else they could do if I had already gone through the normal steps to resolve, and that I needed to contact Google Support. Yet, at that point they clearly knew this was an issue because someone above posted a Support response from the day before I put contacted them where they acknowledge that this is an issue they are working on. I'm just so furious about the amount of time my team and our internal help desk has wasted trying to troubleshoot this issue, only to find out Canvas is aware and working through it. There is a real breakdown somewhere in how known issues are getting communicated to the L1s or how they are getting trained to provide customers with accurate information. This is not the first issue where this has been a problem for us and is seems to have been particulary bad this past school year.

[MARISSASCHRADER]

I had the same experience with L1 Support. When I submitted my ticket they told me it was because Google Drive LTI was not a registered service in the Student's account. I had to explain multiple times that it was because I had tried to employ the fixes that are for Google in Canvas when there are issues and the problem still persists for many, if not most students. They finally realized it was already and issue with engineering after I insisted they attach my ticket to the JIRA (known issue) that already existed. Hoping for a resolution soon. 

[eakelman10]

We are experiencing something similar. Several of our teachers are reporting that only a portion of their classes can access assignments through the LTI feature in Canvas. There doesn't appear to be a pattern that identified why some students can see it but others can not. 

[hammond_steven]

Same here as well. I guess that's a bit of a silver lining as it would be bedlam if our entire student body was experiencing this. At least the student can always navigate to Shared with me in Google Drive and find the documents. Not ideal but at least they can get work done.

[ITHelpDesk]

We recently made a ticket with Canvas, under a staff account, and Canvas Support replied to the middle school student who was having the issue: 

"I understand that you are experiencing an error message when trying to access a Google Doc posted in a course.
I'm sorry for any inconvenience that this may have caused.
I have looked into the matter and found that according to this community post , the error may be prevented by ensuring that you have logged into Chrome with the same Google account in Chrome, Drive, and the Google App LTI authorization. 
Unfortunately Google Drive is a third-party tool and our support as Canvas is limited. I suggest reaching out to Google Support if the error message persists. 
Please feel free to reach out to us again should you have any other questions or concerns, or if you require further assistance."

Our initial ticket did mention that this issue does not apply to every Google Doc in the student's Canvas account. The said troublesome docs that aren't viewable in Canvas are viewable in "Shared with me" in drive.google.com, so I would lean more toward how Canvas is embedding 3rd party. Also, students are only able to log into one account on their issued Chromebook in our district.

We plan to reply to support in hopes to get a resolution and will keep you all posted. 

[MARISSASCHRADER]

Are your students getting this message? 

"We cannot access the requested file. Please contact the adminstrator of the Google drive account for further details." 

If yes, your ticket should probably be tied to the issue that is being worked on by engineering. It seems L1 Support is not always fully aware of when issues are more widespread and are being worked on by their engineers.

[ITHelpDesk]

Yes, we are getting that message. Thanks for the reply! 

[Dominicdp99]

This was our latest reply from Canvas yesterday 1/14/25, it sounds like they are aware and working on it, but it tooks us 3 or 4 open tickets and our IT Director following up on one of them to get someone that knew what was going on. 

_________________________________________________________________

This is a widespread issue, it is affecting most of our clients who are using the Google 1.3 LTI which is many of them, our engineering team is working to get this resolved as quickly as possible. We've associated your case to their tracker on the matter and hope to have an update for you soon, as we believe we've found the root cause of the issues and are now just working with Google to get that fix applied.

Best,

____
L2 Canvas Support

[pchase]

We are having the same issues. Southeastern Indiana.

[ericmichael1]

We are also having this problem in Virginia. We have put in multiple work tickets since Wednesday with no luck.  

[EMichel]

Same issue here. The infinite downloading assignments for multiple students, although most of them seem to be for the newer students recently added to the course. ]

I too have tried all the backdoors and quick fixes but nothing has worked.

[JessieHill1]

I just wanted to keep everyone updated when I get responses from Canvas.

Received this from Canvas this morning:

My name is Amber and I am with L2 Canvas Support. I understand that users are getting an error stating "We cannot access the requested file. Please contact the administrator of the Google drive account for further details." when trying to access Google Drive files.

This behavior is something that our engineering team is aware of and is looking into. I have associated your case to the engineering tracker for this behavior and we will provide you updates on this as they become available.

If you have any questions about this, please let us know.

Thank you,

Amber
L2 Canvas Support

[JessieHill1]

Latest update from Canvas: 

"Thank you so much for following up with us on this case. We do not have any updates from our engineering team at this time, but they are actively working with Google to try to come to a resolution on this. We will be sure to update you via email as soon as we do have an update from our engineering team on this."

Does anyone have any info from Google?

[JessieHill1]

I just got this response from Google:  "We have received an update from our internal team and can confirm that the issue you’ve reported is an ongoing problem on Canvas's end. After further investigation, the issue has been identified as a bug. The Canvas product team is currently aware of the situation and is actively working on developing and implementing a fix."

[jnobili]

Thank you so much for sharing. This is great info. At least we know it is a Canvas issue now.

[ErinLewis]

Same issue. Random students, random classes. Submitted ticket with no response. Would be nice if they could send out information about issues in a bulletin/announcement. 

[MARISSASCHRADER]

I wanted to let you know I heard from my CSM and she let me know a fix was deployed to all Canvas production instances. The  following is what was specifically communicated:

"Instructure recently experienced a change in file permissions due to a request from Google, which was impacting user access to certain files. We actively collaborated with Google to restore the necessary permission set.

As part of their Trust & Safety policies, Google requires a thorough approval process for all tools accessing their APIs. We recognize the urgency of this issue and were fully committed to resolving it as quickly as possible. Once Google provided the required approval, Instructure was prepared to deploy a fix immediately and has applied the fix to all Canvas production instances as of today. 

We appreciate your patience and understanding while we worked with our partner to address this matter."

I hope this completely resolves the issue. Fingers crossed! 

[jnobili]

Thank you for sharing!! Let's hope

[PatriciaDenton]

Today I received this message:

Hello,

Your Canvas case xxxxxxxxx has been updated with a new message.

Hello, Our engineers have created a fix that is undergoing QA testing. The next step, once it has passed QA, is for this fix to be deployed to the live production environment to address the problem. We will provide another update once that has happened. This ticket will remain in an "On-Hold" status at this time. We appreciate your patience throughout the process of testing and implementing a fix for this issue - if you have any questions about this message or the status of this fix, please feel free to contact Support. Keep Learning! Support Panda Notifier of Things

GRRR- this ticket is several weeks old now.  Unacceptable.

[jnobili]

Thank you - so frustrating (and this is a renewal year for us - torches are out!)

[chris_g2]

It looks like Canvas has fixed/is fixing this issue now.
So far the best we've been able to figure out is to go to the "Google Drive" navigation item on a course - Close the file picker window and click "Sign out" - Then re-authorize the "Google Drive LTI by Canvas" integration. Then go to the assignment and it should load. Other combinations of deleting the "Google Drive" Registered service or deleting it from the users list of "Approved Integrations" seem to be less effective. (Still trying things out)

As not all teachers have the "Google Drive" navigation in their courses, we were planning on creating a "Google Drive LTI Reset" course.  That course would just be the reset directions and the Google Drive course navigation. The course would have a self enroll code, so that could be socialized and students could reset it themselves. 

We are also trying to see if we can do this programmatically via the api,  but we've not made much progress yet. 
Additionally, it may be that no action will be required, and the "fix" simply needs to replicate between Canvas/Google, and whatever clustering/nodes they have.

[bailey_danielle]

So far, having students reauthorize the Google Drive LTI through the instructions you provided is working for us now that the fix has been deployed. Thanks for sharing!

[chris_g2]

It looks like Canvas has fixed/is fixing this issue now.
So far the best we've been able to figure out is to go to the "Google Drive" navigation item on a course - Close the file picker window and click "Sign out" - Then re-authorize the "Google Drive LTI by Canvas" integration. Then go to the assignment and it should load. Other combinations of deleting the "Google Drive" Registered service or deleting it from the users list of "Approved Integrations" seem to be less effective. (Still trying things out)

As not all teachers have the "Google Drive" navigation in their courses, we were planning on creating a "Google Drive LTI Reset" course.  That course would just be the reset directions and the Google Drive course navigation. The course would have a self enroll code, so that could be socialized and students could reset it themselves. 

We are also trying to see if we can do this programmatically via the api,  but we've not made much progress yet. 
Additionally, it may be that no action will be required, and the "fix" simply needs to replicate between Canvas/Google, and whatever clustering/nodes they have.

[pecchiog]

I appreciate the detailed description above. We have had the same experience. Periodically we would get this issue with students as a one-off. We would follow the instructions to essentialy reset the authentication both in Google and in Canvas (disconnecting the app...etc. in Google -- deleting the LTI in user account settings in Canvas...clearing cache...etc.). This time around, nothing fixes it, And it's getting worse and spreading. 

We have 1600 students using Canvas. This is occurring with about 10% of our students. There is no pattern It occurs witht he Cloud 1.3 Assignment submission type and also the Google icon in the RI can identify to what causes it. I am attaching Canvas' instructions for fixing it. Perhaps that will work for some people. I

t began happening for us on 12/20/24 when I first created a ticket and escalated. It occurs with the Google Cloud 1.3 Assignment External Tool Submission Type and also the Google Icon Embed using the Rich Content Editor. I don't have any contact person at Google to work through them. Canvas has been helpful but essentially they point to Google. Could removing and resetting the integration for the entire instance possibly fix this? This has created major disruptions for teachers.  

Current workarounds are as follows:

1. Use text entry or student annotation submission type (or file upload).

2. Keep the assignment paste in a share link from Google drive outside of Canvas. Make sure it's set to public or organizational, and paste in the assignment description. If needed, the student can submit their response in the assignment comments area of they aren't able to use SUBMIT. 

3. Upload files directly rather than using a cloud embed. This way they live there forever and we don't need to worry about sharing. Of course, this takes away the functionality you get with the cloud assignment. 

[chris_g2]

This started system wide for us around then as well. The fix detailed would not work until yesterday when Canvas/Google fixed whatever their issue was. I would NOT remove the integration; this might break previously created assignments and submissions.

[pecchiog]

Sorry--are you saying it will work now with the fix i described?

[Dominicdp99]

Does anyone know if it is possible to re implement Google Cloud LTI if we have removed it? I was not aware this was a submission tool and would break assignments, so part of our troubleshooting we removed the old LTI and replaced for the new one, and now we are still having issues, just different ones, with Assignments LTI 1.3. I have asked both Google and Canvas support and no one can seem to give me a straight answer. 

[chriscas]

Hi All,

I believe the issue discussed here is covered by the known issue at Investigate Google Drive permission issues with ne... - Instructure Community - 631953.  According to that issue document, the issue was resolved on Jan 22, so hopefully everyone is back working agaon.  I just wanted ot pass along that official page for everyone's awareness.  It does state state, "Some students may still encounter an issue related to their access token through Google. To resolve this, go to the student’s Canvas Profile > Settings and click the trash can icon on the Google Drive LTI integration. This will prompt the student to reauthorize the next time they try to access Google Drive data but should resolve their issue,"  so if anyone is still experieicing the issue, that step may be needed to get everything fixed again.

-Chris